Learn From Love, Learn From Peace
by Aconite72
Summary: Annabeth Chase was stressed out about work and she blew up on her boyfriend of almost a decade, Percy Jackson. The aftermath wasn't pretty but in time of such great relationship crisis, as she later found out, by learning a little bit from love and a little bit from peace, they'll be just fine at the end. Maybe even better. Percabeth Oneshot.


**Hi!**

**So for those who have been following me, I'm very sorry for the inactivity but college, job, and ADULTING have been killing me for the past month leaving me with little to no time to write. But I'm back! (Sort of) with this one-shot I've been planning to write for a while. It's enough about the lovely Percabeth one-shots ... _spicing it up with some angsts would be great_, I thought to myself.**

**So that's what I did.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

The most world changing realisation her brilliant mind ever managed to conjure in all of her twenty four years of living came amidst one of the worst crisis of her young adult life.

Everything started in the late afternoon of a normal weekend.

Annabeth was nursing a pint of wine inside the glass but her eyes weren't on the sloshing red liquid. It was completely focused on the bright laptop screen as she tried in vain to type up a report. A new client approached her a couple of months ago asking her to build _'the best god-damn house you could think of'_. She would've been more than happy to do it had the bastard gave her a decent budget. It's been revisions after revisions, redesigns after redesigns, fights and meetings over budgeting and costs for the past month. No matter how she spun it, Annabeth either couldn't: a/ Made a design that fits a budget that _also_ fits what the cheap bastard would approve or b/ Made a design that jumped the budget so grossly that she must scrap altogether.

If she wasn't Annabeth Chase, she would break down crying and drink herself to a stupor right there on the couch.

_Okay … please work this time. Mom, please, help me out on this._ She pleaded in her head. Hoping that Athena would smile down (No that's not possible, approvingly frown would be enough) at her just with this one calculation. If it showed up just right … this might be the final design.

The long string of numbers and equations were flashing tauntingly on her computer screen, waiting for her to press down the enter key.

"I swear to God …" She muttered before gingerly pushed down on the enter key.

Then came the result.

Annabeth froze in place when the final number showed up on the screen. Cold dread and even colder fury built inside of her soul like a bushfire.

Her left eye twitched.

Before Annabeth could screech all of the curses that were coming out like a geyser inside of her head and made her neighbours called the police on her, she upended all of the wine in the glass she was holding into her mouth.

She snapped the lid of her laptop shut with a resounding _clap_ and threw it aside.

"Fuck it." She slammed the wine glass onto the coffee table and lunged at the entire bottle of wine next to it like a deranged woman. Which she definitely was right then.

She heard a click at the door when someone entered her apartment. She didn't give a shit if it was an armed robber. He could kill her right then for all she cared.

Annabeth took several gulps of the mind-numbing juice straight from the bottle. She really wished it could knock her into a coma. That way she could miss out on the design revision meeting _tomorrow_.

"Woah." The armed robber or whoever the hell that was almost sounded scared. "I never knew you're an alcoholic."

"Go away Percy." She spat. "I can't deal with you right now."

"No need to deal, I'm already sold. What's wrong?"

Her sweet, sweet boyfriend of … for as long as she could remember appeared in front of her eyes. Annabeth didn't know if it was her libido or the lethal blood alcohol speaking but he looked extremely _delectible_ then. His sea-green eyes shone with so genuine concern they almost broke her right then and there. It really didn't help he looked exceptionally cute that day with his cheeks flushed from the cold outside. Hair even more tousled than always from the wind and the wooly jumper he was wearing made cuddling a very sound proposition at that moment.

"You look horrible." He said and Annabeth just shrugged. She knew she looked like a hobo.

He grabbed onto the neck of the wine bottle she was holding, gently but firmly trying to tug it out of her hand that's holding it hostage. Of course she didn't let go. She was hell-bent on getting drunk then and even her boyfriend would have to cross her dead body to -…

"Wise Girl." He frowned and looked at her disapprovingly. "Give."

She narrowed her eyes at him and he mirrored suit, not backing down at all.

"No."

She felt super defensive like a dog trying to protect its territory. Percy was a relentless invader, however.

"Babe." He kicked up the name calling a notch and the disapproving frown he previously wore melted down into that wounded baby seal face.

"_No._" She said but it's weaker this time around. _Damn it._ He knew all about her weaknesses.

"Sugar." He tried another name and Annabeth's eyebrows rose in half surprise and disgust.

"What? Ew, Percy."

"Too cheesy?"

"Duh." She rolled her eyes.

"Gimme the bottle or I'll call you all of the cringiest names in existence." He grinned and she had to bite her bottom lip to keep herself from smiling. Only Percy can turn her mood from murdering babies and sacrificing them to Hades to a love-struck teenager in about half a minute.

"All of the men on Earth and I chose the most annoying one." She sighed and let go of the bottle. Percy just set it back on the table and crashed down right next to her on the sofa, throwing an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. Annabeth didn't resist, leaning into his warm and buried her head into the crook of his neck. She didn't tell him this but being close to him was like sitting on the beach. He smelled fresh like ocean breeze and sea salt and it calmed her down somewhat like a dose of sedative.

"Well, you've always liked a challenge, haven't you?" He chuckled and kissed the crown of her head. "Now what was that all about? That dude in the office hit on you again?"

"Don't remind me." She grunted. "And no, I broke his wrist the other day when he thought I would give him a chance if he was to try and touch my ass. I don't think he'll be trying again."

"That's my girl." He burst out laughing.

Annabeth was glad Percy wasn't the jealous type. The way he joked about the herd of men who thought they could have a chance with her at the office (Whom she all promptly and sometime violently denied) just showed how much trust he had for her. It went both way, though. She didn't mind hearing about all of the girls leaving strips of paper with their phone numbers on his desk at work or the random tourists flirting with him at the aquarium, either. The way his eyes lit up and the way he smiled whenever she surprised him with a visit at the aquarium was enough.

Annabeth was sure that she did more or less the same thing when he showed up with lunch at her office for him to have that much trust in her.

People said that trust is the hardest thing to get in a relationship but it came naturally and effortlessly to them.

"You know I'm here whenever you need me, right? You can vent to me all about it. You looked half an inch from jumping out of the window when I came in."

She snorted.

"Just work. It's been stressing me out, that's all."

"Must've been pretty serious if it did that much to your sanity."

"Lost my mind about a week ago." She traced her finger absent-mindedly on his chest. "There's just this one guy … he wanted the best looking house in the world but he didn't even give me a quarter of the budget necessary to make one. Kept on rejecting designs after designs. My patience's running thin."

"Why don't you just drop him?"

"I don't give up, Percy. I had dealt with much harder clients than him before."

She didn't know how to call it quit. Of course, that's completely on the table if she thought that the client's too unreasonable. But then Annabeth had had a perfect record with clients and no matter how difficult they were, she always found a solution. What would people say about her if she failed this one?

"They didn't send you into murderous rampages, did they?"

"Yeah they did, you just weren't here. Lucky you."

"No one's going to think worse of you if just threw him. You can't satisfy everyone."

"But that's not _me_, Percy." She was beginning to get irritated. Why didn't he understand? Annabeth _does not_ give up. Ever. She couldn't throw away her pride simply because the project's too hard (Through no choice of her own).

"You're smart, you know when something's not worth your time." He just sighed and Annabeth pulled away from him, a little bit hurt and indignant.

"What are you implying?"

He raised his hands in surrender.

"I didn't say anything that's not true. It's stressing you out for no reasons, Wise Girl. I know you can dump him like a sack of brick anytime you wanted."

Her blood started to boil.

"Oh yeah? Don't pretend to be me, Jackson. You don't know what you're talking about!" Annabeth growled like a lioness being cornered. Anyone looking at her right now would stagger back and run as fast as she could before she pounced on them and ate them alive. Not Percy. He regarded her with a look that looked one part exasperated and the other disappointed.

Annabeth hated the latter.

"I know what I'm talking about. I don't want to have my best friend stressing herself to an early death just because she's too stubborn to just call it quit."

She also hated the fact that in her mind, somewhere, she knew he was right.

Percy was fighting a battle he couldn't win, however. Not only Annabeth absolutely despise being on the receiving end of someone's disappointment, she also hated being _not_ right. Instead of simmering down, she went full nuclear.

"Why don't _you_ …" She extended a finger and pushed on his forehead. Her face reddened with rage. "… keep your mouth shut and keep your great wisdom for someone who would listen. Then worry about _your_ business instead of mine?"

The flare of hurt in Percy's eyes almost shocked her out of her lividness. Thinking back, she's never seen Percy so hurt. They've been battered and bruises all throughout their teenage year running godly's errands, facing chaos and death at every turns. But never once did she ever see the light in his eyes dimmed as such like his life was snuffed out from inside of him.

"You know what." He stood up from her sofa. "You can drink yourself to death if you want. I don't …-"

Percy was about to say something but it looked like he caught himself in time. He clamped his mouth shut and just shook his head.

"I'm going home."

He did. And she just watched his back as he walked away from her and the mess she had become. Even when she could tell he was also mad at her, he still managed to surprise by shutting the door with a soft click instead of slamming it like she had expected him to.

Now she felt bad.

Annabeth growled under her breath where she was standing.

"Yeah fuck you too, Jackson."

To curse him out even more, she did exactly what he didn't want her to do: She grabbed the wine bottle and took a big chug of the liquid. Much to her chagrin, it didn't _'wash away'_ her building guilt or despair. It felt like the more she drank and the drunker she became, the more emotional she turned.

Annabeth could only hope that by the time she finished the bottle, she would be too out of it to feel a thing.

* * *

Their fight started at about five in the afternoon and by eight in the evening she was sitting in her bathtub crying her eyes out with a freshly popped wine bottle right on the bathroom floor. It wasn't the quiet tears that she had always forced herself to shed. Rather, it was full-out bawling, mewling, sniffling with all of the snots and fat droplets of tear streaming down like waterfalls from her bloodshot eyes.

"Fuck you, Percy." She croaked out before breaking out into another bout of sob.

_Fuck you for being a gentleman, for being the perfect boyfriend, and fuck you for being right!_ She screeched in her head.

Annabeth took another swig of the alcohol.

She knew she messed up bad. Her pride blinded her again and she just dumped all of the frustration that had built up for the past month onto him in one get-go and now she wouldn't even blame him if he was to dump _her._

"Oh God, what did I do?" She moaned and wiggled inside of her bathtub, making ear-itching squeaking noises as she did.

"I messed up. I messed up." Annabeth mumbled drunkenly.

She needed to tell someone. Annabeth needed to vent all of the turmoil inside of her chest out or she would burst. It was fortunate that a shred of her consciousness was thoughtful enough to bring also her phone to the bathroom with her. It was Leo's masterpiece: A phone that can mask the demigod signal that would've been broadcasted to all hungry monsters in a couple of miles radius had she called on a normal phone. She had never been more grateful for the kid's craftiness. Annabeth definitely couldn't find the brain cells to make up a rainbow for an Iris' message right then.

Fumbling for the phone on the tiled floor, it took her almost five minutes to get to the quick dial section and pressed on the name _'Piper'._

Yeah, she would know what to do.

The phone rang for a while and she filled all of the silence between the beeps with her sniffles. Piper finally picked up on the dozen ring.

"Hi Annabeth! Oh …"

The cheeriness that usually came with Piper dissipated the moment she heard the sniffling.

"I screwed up, Piper. Bad." Annabeth wailed and looked up at the water faucet hanging over her head as she laid like a log in her bathtub. She wondered if she was to turn the water right then could she drown herself?

It'd be a pretty ironic death to the girlfriend of the Son of Poseidon.

Or if she was even his girlfriend at that point …

"Are you drunk?" Piper said with ill-hidden concern.

"Yea."

"It's Percy, isn't it?"

That's the wrong thing to say.

Annabeth bawled hard at his name.

"I … I pushed him a … away and … and … I was so … so … rude … and …" Annabeth hiccuped and hyperventilated her way through her story. It all sounded pretty pathetic, to be honest.

"Okay, calm down Annabeth. We'll take this slow, okay? _Breathe._" Piper talked sweetly through the phone and Annabeth could tell that each one of her word was laced with potent Charm Speak since she felt herself calming down almost immediately. She breathe along with Piper who was giving her instruction over the phone:

_"__In … out … in … out …"_

Her breath became less laboured and the burning storm of emotion inside of her lessened in mere minutes.

"Okay, now. Tell me what happened."

So she did. Annabeth told her best girl friend about the annoying client, about how Percy came in with genuine concern and want to help her, and how she pushed him away and hurt him because her pride was in the way of her admitting that she was wrong.

"Oh dear." Piper mumbled.

Annabeth simply sniffled.

"Do you think … he'll take me back after this?" Annabeth curled herself into a ball in the hollowed space of the bathtub.

"Of course he will. What are you talking about? He loves you! As much as he was an idiot sometimes the guy's heart has always been yours. I can tell." Piper scoffed.

"Maybe not after this …" She sighed sadly. "I was so rude and hurtful, Piper. If it was me I wouldn't forgive me either."

"No, if it was Percy who did that, would you forgive him?"

_Yes._ Both her brain and heart spoke solidly in a rare agreement. She didn't vocalise this and just stayed quiet at the question.

That was all Piper needed.

"See. You both are probably the best couple that I've ever seen, aside from me and Jason of course …" Piper giggled. "… but a healthy relationship isn't one without arguments. You don't just learn to make love, you have to also learn to make peace with one another."

"I miss the time when you're just an innocent teenager without all of the sexual innuendos." Annabeth huffed and a watery smile brushed her lips just for a while.

"Growing pain."

_"__Piper? I'm home, babe!"_ Annabeth suddenly heard someone call out on the other line. Even when she's drunk it's not hard to guess who it was.

"Well my mister's calling. I think you better get back to yours."

"Wait Piper, what should I do?" She sat up in her bathtub.

"I trust you to figure it out."

And then the line was cut.

Annabeth sighed and tried to wipe her face clean of all of the tears and the snots in vain. She couldn't even begin to imagine how bad she must've looked right then. When Percy came in she already looked a mess and now saying that she looked like a hobo might not even be an exaggeration anymore.

Didn't really care that she was still clothed in sweatpants and a tank top, Annabeth reached back to the water faucet and turned on the water.

The alcohol couldn't stop her from building a plan inside of her mind.

She's got a boyfriend to take back.

* * *

_What the hell am I even doing here?_

She thought as she stood with trembling legs in front of his apartment's door. She had hailed a cab all the way from her place in downtown Queens all the way to his door in Manhattan. The driver had thrown her a weird look at her clearly inebriated gait and the slur in her voice. But other than that brief look, he stayed quiet (Much to her appreciation) aside from a warning not to vomit in his car.

And now she stood in 45 degrees New York night with only a thin coat to protect herself from the wind that seemed to be whipping and slashing away at whatever exposed skin they could find.

She shivered as she stared at his door. A small part of her just wanted to turn around, barricaded and holed up in her place instead of having to face him and _communicate._

Her hand didn't reach up to knock onto the wood. Annabeth's palm instead found the cold metal of the doorknob.

To her utter surprise, the knob turned along with her wrist and the door opened out for her revealing his cozy living room beyond. All of the lights were still on.

Annabeth didn't think twice of the oddity. Walking slowly and quietly into his apartment, she closed the door and locked it behind her. Annabeth hung her coat on the rack and toed off her shoes where she had always left them whenever she came over.

Everything was quiet.

She gingerly made her way into the living room. The clock above the television set told her that it was already well past eleven into the night and midnight was near.

His space was so _him_ and so familiar that it almost made Annabeth cried again. Just like his hair, it was kind of messy and all over the place. The half-eaten pizza was still there on the coffee table. His bookshelf was still as messy and disorganised as always. Although Annabeth gave him crap every time she came over (Which was almost everyday), he never bothered to clean up his small book collection. Across the island and inside the tiny kitchen the sinks were overfill with dirty plates and cups he must have been too lazy to clean and put off from one day to the next.

_I should remind him to do his dishes some of these days._ Annabeth's mind whispered exasperatedly.

_Yeah if he still wanted you to remind him … since he had dumped you already._ Another part of her mind retorted and Annabeth bit back the urge to slam her head into the wall to get it to shut up.

Stalking up the stairs, she found the door to his bedroom almost instinctively. Percy's dim night light casted a yellow light that she could see through the tiny crack between the door frame from the hallway.

Embracing wholly the dumb courage that her staggeringly high blood alcohol level was still giving her, she took one single deep breath before making her way quietly into his bedroom. Annabeth saw a huge lump on the bed but she couldn't see if he was sleeping from where she stood.

Annabeth was too scared to call out for him. Not knowing how he would react to her being there.

_"__I don't want you anymore, get out of my house and out of my life too while you're at it?"_

_"__You're a bitch, Annabeth. Just go die or something."_

Her brain was whispering all sorts of toxic, imaginary lines to her inside of her head and it took an entire new level of focus and control to not burst out sobbing where she stood looking at him just a few feet away from her.

Then suddenly, he turned on his bed. His sea-green eyes laid on her with such intensity and abruptness she took a step back.

Both of them said nothing only staring at one another.

Annabeth felt like a prisoner who knew she was destined for the death row standing in front of the judge who would lay the sentence on her. Usually she could tell just what Percy was thinking just by looking into his eyes but not that night. That night his eyes were completely opaque to her.

Annabeth didn't know how long she stood there. But she stood regardless.

After what felt like an aeon, Percy finally did _something._

He pulled his duvet aside and revealed an empty space right next to him in bed, looking at her expectantly.

It took Annabeth about five seconds to process what had happened and when she finally did, she felt her eyes spicing itself up for a whole new water show. It's not the time for that just yet, though. She dragged herself across the carpeting of his bedroom floor, fell on his bed and squeezed her frigid body into the inviting warmth of the duvet and her boyfriend's warmth.

She felt his arms encircling her from behind and they settled back into silence. All of her doubts and her fears melted away just like that and in the minutes that came after, a strange serenity came over her.

"I left the lights on." He finally whispered.

"For me?"

"Who else would I be waiting for?" He chuckled huskily and she turned around in his arms to look directly at him.

"I'm the worst girlfriend in the entire world. Dump me." She said in a matter-of-factly tone that surprised even her. Just about an hour ago she was tethering over the edge of her mind worrying about him leaving her. Now she was not only _encouraging_ him to leave her, she also gave him a good reason to do so.

Being close to Percy really was turning her silly.

He cracked up. His warm laughter filled up the silence of the bedroom like a flock of summery coastal wind, carrying with it the sunshine and all of the coolness and vibrancy of a fair weather sea with it.

Annabeth felt light-headed.

"Well you got your up and down." He said teasingly. "But you're not the _worst_."

"Second worst?"

"Nope."

"Third worst?"

"Not even close."

"So there's some degree of worse-ness in it?" Annabeth pouted.

"Does it matter?"

In the warm, yellowish haze of his night light, she saw his smile and felt the gravity of his eyes on her like a lance heading straight for her heart and very being. Annabeth felt every motion of his piping hot finger brushing a stray lock of hair from covering her eye, tucking it neatly behind her ear.

"Yes." She mumbled, awe-struck.

"Not to me." He shrugged before he descended down her lips like a hawk. Annabeth felt her eyes widened when she felt his lips on hers, pressing hard and sensually both like it was punishing her for the mess she had made and showing her the benefits of being _his_.

She lightly moaned into his mouth and wrapped her arms around his neck. Annabeth felt his hand down by her hip and the other on her back as he clutched her close to him in an almost possessive manner.

"Percy …"

"Shhh …" He shushed her and his teeth bit down lightly on her bottom lip, making her shudder in a wave of untameable pleasure.

"Wait Percy I have to …"

"Hush, Wise Girl."

Before he could fry her mind once more, Annabeth caught his face in her hand and made him to look at her.

"I'm sorry for what I said. I didn't mean it." She spoke, each word like a weight being lifted off of her shoulder as she confessed her sin. "I guess I didn't know just how stressed I was and … I took it out on you. It was my fault. I'm very, very sorry."

"I understand." He caught her hand that was cupping his cheek. Annabeth couldn't help but notice just how well his larger hand fitted hers. "I also wasn't very tact about my, _ah_, advice."

"No no … it's what I needed. I didn't want to understand then but … I do now."

"Good." He smiled and collapsed back onto the bed. His arms never left her body, however, and she was glad.

"You smelled like wine. Dionysus would probably make you his co-god if he was here."

"An eternity of parties isn't exactly my dream life, Seaweed Brain." She chuckled.

"Then what's your dream life?" He said before pulling the duvet higher onto their bodies, covering the both of them to the neck. Annabeth's never felt happier or safer until then.

And then she realised right then and there a profound answer to that question. The gravity of the answer was so great that it shook her world to the very core and both her heart and soul felt like they were struck by lightning.

She didn't want to be happy and safe just _then._

She wanted to feel happy and safe right by his side _forever._

Annabeth looked on at her best friend plus boyfriend whom she had known to probably be the bravest, smartest (_Do not_ tell him that), and most beautiful man in the Universe. She had known for a long time ago that she wanted to marry him one day when they had settled down and got their lives in order. After all, eight years of dating gave her a lot of time to daydream. Right then, though, the _want_ grew rapidly and inexplicably into a _craving_, a _need_. Annabeth needed to marry this man before he could slip out from her fingers. She wanted to be right there with him through the thickest and the thinnest parts of life. She wanted to be the woman he would brag to his pals about, be that only woman in the entire world who could provide him with happiness, the warmth, and safety.

On top of all, Annabeth wanted him to always come home to _her_. A shared home, not two different flats that were a throat-slitting $50 from one another. Not only it's more cost effective but it'd sate the rising cave woman inside of her of having Percy all to herself.

As his _wife_.

"Annabeth?" She finally jolted out of her stupor when Percy called out to her, his eyebrows were furrowed lightly. "You okay? I could hear your brain working all the way from here."

"I love you." She let loose the bullet.

Percy froze in place like he was just zapped with a taser.

Despite the fact that they have been dating for almost a decade, it might came as a surprise to most people (Not that the both of them told people about it) that none of them ever said the three big words. Yes, they did all of the things that lovers do … dating, kissing, sex.

Well, either both of them were very obtuse with one another's feelings or there was this unwritten and unsaid understanding between them that what they showed to one another was far more than enough.

It's a 50/50 chance, believe it or not.

Anyway, if there was an understanding between them she just broke it.

His eyes went from widened to a shade darker after the words finally caught up to him. The next and only thing she could remember from that night was that his lips came down to her again and that was it. Annabeth remembered the melting hot passion of the night, the delicious cacophony of sounds, frictions, and sensations as he unravelled her both physically and mentally. The choked senseless words and promises both dirty and chaste that were whispered into her ears as the night lengthened.

Annabeth's last memory of the night consisted of her laying bare on his bed, sweaty and panting heavily as he peppered kisses across all of the skin his lips could find purchase on.

"I love you, too." Percy finally whispered as Annabeth's consciousness faded away into the most peaceful sleep she had ever had in years. Piper's words echoed in her head and she stifled a giggle from how true it was.

_You don't just learn to make love, you have to also learn to make peace._

And oh boy was she at peace right by his side.

* * *

**So what do you guys think? Please leave a review!**


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